


For the Love of

by ewinfic



Series: Unlikely [3]
Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: F/M, POV Multiple, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-20
Updated: 2015-10-20
Packaged: 2018-04-27 08:38:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5041525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ewinfic/pseuds/ewinfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perspectives on Beck and Johanssen from the rest of the crew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For the Love of

**Melissa Lewis**

I don't know why I'm allowing this. I suppose the fact that I'm now leading a mutiny is making me a little haphazard in my decision-making, though Martinez would probably say I've just gotten old and soft, and he might be right about that. I suspect I softened once I learned that Watney was still alive. Miracles have that effect.

It irritates me that they can't be a _little_ more circumspect about it, but I suppose that's just my own prejudices in play. I don't like grand romance, never have, never will. Robert and I knew that we were right for each other by putting the time and work into the relationship, I never saw stars in his eyes and he never saw them in mine. But dammit if I don't show up to breakfast one morning to greet two members of my crew so starry-eyed and glowing that they might as well serve as a supplemental power source for the ship. It was bad enough when they were just in love with each other. Sex complicates relationships immeasurably. I'd never tolerate any of this if it weren't a very specific set of circumstances: they're both single, thank fuck. They make a fairly good match. They're both still devoted to their jobs, and to getting Watney back. I've never seen them argue with each other, so there's hope they can pull this off without going down in flames. They're _trying_ to be professional. And dammit, I can't help but feel a certain empathy with Johanssen... Beck can be hard to ignore at times.

As far as powering the ship goes, I could probably have run it off her suppressed hormone surges alone for the entire mission up until now. At least that part's over. I'm not cruel; watching people suffer isn't my idea of fun. But one interesting fact that most people don't know is that human beings tend to be much, much worse at their jobs when they are happy than when they are miserable. As I'm in charge of ensuring that my team are very good at their jobs, it's not in my best interest to watch over their happiness, so I let things go as they were. But Johanssen was _so_ miserable over Beck that it was probably detrimental. At any rate, she's happy now and the computer is still running and we're all still alive. Beck's disposition hasn't really changed that much, but he's so easy-going that I wouldn't expect any great upheaval on his part. He needs to be easy-going, with her. She has more single-minded intensity than any person I've ever met in my life, including me. I doubt he realizes what he just signed up for.

At any rate, I can't devote too much mental energy to this, and it would take more work to keep them apart than it takes to just let it go, so I'm done with it. Watney needs more of my attention than Beck and Johanssen do.

Maybe it was that failure; leaving him behind... maybe that's what softened me to the point where I'm even considering this. Life is short, after all. Especially in space.

I can't afford to think like that.

 

**Rick Martinez**

Okay, now, this is adorable. ADORABLE. I want to wrap them both up in a little tissue-filled box and send them to Hallmark so that they can have little ornaments modeled after them. Beck looks like a kid on Christmas morning, every morning, and Johanssen looks like a smug little kitten with cream all over its nose.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, FUCK THEM SO HARD, not that they aren't already fucking so hard that it's practically audible through the wall, though that's probably my imagination because it's been fucking _years_ since I've seen my wife's rosy land of Heaven and who the fuck are they that they get to fuck? FUCK!

That said, I have got to pull Beck aside and ask him what it's like doing it in half G. Johanssen would be more fun to ask, but she won't answer, he probably would. He's probably going to write a research paper on it.

He's a smart guy, and good-looking too, I can see what she sees in him. If I weren't male, straight, Catholic, and completely uninterested, I'd bang him myself. Her? That should go without saying. Johanssen has a serious case of HOT going on with zero cure, and she's probably smarter than any of us; I bet Beck's one of the guys that fetishizes on that.

Shit, I'm wondering about a threesome now, and it's nothing more than the fact that I haven't been laid in so long that my balls start dancing a fucking tango every time the two of them aren't in the room. Because, you see, they MIGHT be having sex. Right now. Right this second, she might be bouncing on him like a pogo stick except with the best set of tits this side of space, right this second he might be shooting a wad, right this second I HATE THEM SO MUCH. SO. MUCH.

 

**Mark Watney**

I hope Beck told her. I bet he did. I'll know when I see Martinez; if he looks pissed off, then they've been fucking.

 

**Alex Vogel**  
_in Deutsch_

I wouldn't have known but for the fact that Lewis glared at them when they entered the room at breakfast, making me wonder why; they hadn't done anything wrong. The day was too young to have done anything wrong yet. But it wasn't what they had done, it was what they were, and I recognized it after wondering for some time. Johanssen's taut alertness and nervousness, almost a hysteria of attention to detail, had softened. Her hair was mussed and she looked happy with a clear, fragile happiness that it did me good to see. Of course I should have seen it sooner; it lit the room.

Then there was Beck, his usual affable self but with a new energy, almost bouncing on his heels. It was as though a balance had been struck through their joining, some transfer of force between them that gave her some of his serenity and gave him some of her tension. Not bad tension, but the tension of guitar strings, drawn tightly through the air and waiting for nothing more than a touch to bring out strains of sweetness.

It made me ache for home of course, ache for the sweet chaotic nest of my own dear family. It made me ache for youth again, to know again the process of that first and most powerful love, the way it sweeps through you and leaves in you a wholly different object than the soul you thought you knew. When I first met Helena, I thought I had turned into a beast at first, and then a fire, and then an ocean. I know she felt the same way though she mocked my poetic phrasing. I told her she was a fool to marry a poet astrophysicist. And so we were married.

Are Beck and Johanssen fools? Perhaps. But we're all off on a fool's mission now, spinning through Earth orbit to be slung like a stone back to Mars where we'll catch Watney like a fly in a web and be spun and slung off again back home. I estimate our chance of success to be 24.72%. Helena always said that I was the only pessimistic poet she ever met. Perhaps introducing love into the equation will bend those odds in our favor.

I walk through the ship and see little evidences of affection on every surface, the panels lighting up in arrays that twinkle and laugh at us as we hurtle through space, the stars sending embraces of burning light, small touches among the crew that say that we are family. If not for these people, I would never have survived so long without Helena. I think that Helena understands my devotion to them. It is fatherly and childlike at the same time. I believe that I have a more mature fondness for any of them than they have for me, but at the same time I cling to them harder; life has sawn off all of my hard edges, or perhaps that was the children. I need affection, I require family. Along with that, I long for my family to be happy and to be healthy.

So I rejoice in this new development. Why not? Beck and Johanssen are in orbit around each other, melding and merging like the Mice galaxies, trailing stars in the wake of their revolution. It affirms life. We have so much need of life-affirming things now that we are plunging back into danger. We need to know that people can bridge tremendous chasms, that science only knows so much about the human spirit, and little to nothing about love.

We may all be dead tomorrow. Let them love each other with as much passion and tenderness as only two young lovers can bear.

Watney, we're coming to get you, and we have love on our side in this battle. Love for each other, love for you. Love for love.


End file.
